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How did Snowden get a security clearance?

For a person like Snowden to receive a security clearance at any level, the process would first go through the government’s Office of Personnel Management. There, background checks, interviews, and investigations are carried out. The depth of the background investigations depends on the level of clearance. Once the process is completed, the findings are sent back to the department from which the application came. In Snowden’s case, the Department of Defense would have been the final gatekeeper. There are no uniform standards for how agencies make this adjudication.

Some say there are systematic problems with the methods OPM uses to carry out its clearance investigations. “Agencies have questioned the quality of OPM’s investigations and our work has shown that the OPM investigations are incomplete,” Brenda Farrell, a director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, told the Beast. “For example, in the 2009 report we noted that 87 percent of the investigative reports for about 3,500 top secret clearances—that were favorably adjudicated—were missing at least one type of documentation required by federal investigative standards and OPM’s internal guidance.”

Farrell said that OPM never addressed the concerns her department issued, and has yet to fix their process of collecting data. (OPM declined to comment.)

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The guy obviously is very skilled to be able to work where he did without even a high school education. He worked for the CIA, NSA, Dell, an unnamed 3 letter agency and Booze Allen all before he was 29, with no high school education. Either he has a relative in a VERY influential position, or he is VERY VERY good at what he does.

Looks like the Intelligence Community hasn’t learned anything after all these years.

Anyone who has access to Classified Information whose unauthorized disclosure could result in exceptionally grave danger to National Security, in addition to the security clearance, needs to be certified under PRP (Personnel Reliability Program). Make them adhere to DODD 5210.42.

Since the Intelligence Community doesn’t have to adhere to any Personnel Reliability, leaks like this won’t stop. PRP; think about it NSA.

That is a high school equivalency. It’s very different, especially in terms of prospective income/career outcome, as studies have shown.

Anyway, while I can’t speak to this process, I find that many similar evaluations — from TSA security theater to graduate school qualifying exams — are more about show and deterring unsuitables than about preventing undeterred unsuitables. Better than nothing, but far from ideal or stringent, let alone perfect.

The fact that military authorities didn’t even TRY to refuse him clearance is disheartening. The will of the civilian populace should not be absolute and for proof I present his entire ‘term’ in ‘office’.